In today's world of modern medicine, doctors are working to advance medically in ways that humans never would have imagined many years ago. Doctors are on the verge of discovering a possible cure to cancer, and they have already eradicated many diseases, such as polio, in the United States. Through science, doctors are reaching a medical frontier that they never could have dreamed of reaching back in the nineteenth century when medical technologies were far less advanced then they are today. During the nineteenth century, doctors had a, " hazy knowledge of the location and role of internal organs," and were, " gradually superseded by a binary concept of sexual determinism" (Marsh). Over time, there knowledge of medicine increased as technology began to advance. In Charlotte Perkins Gilman's essay, The Yellow Wallpaper, she speaks of an older medical technique, the rest cure. This cure was generally prescribed to those that were mentally unstable, and more often, the patients were typically women. In Gilman's essay, she follows the story of a woman that develops a case of depression after her pregnancy. Through showing how the woman was improperly medically diagnosed, how the woman's mental state decreased, and how the woman received improper medical care, Gilman was able to show that medical techniques of the nineteenth century were not necessarily accurate, in an effort to prove that old medical remedies were not always effective at treating medical illnesses.

During the nineteenth century, a neurologist, Silas Weir Mitchell developed a cure, the rest cure, that he thought would treat, " hysteria, neurasthenia, and other nervous illnesses." He believed that his cure, " kept some patients alive and others out of asylums" (Allen). The rest cure, specifically, was a medical technique that was prescribed to patients where they would do virtually nothing. Patients were encouraged to do practically no physical activity, not to write, and to not to have physical interaction with the outside world. Doctors wanted their patients to become one with their thoughts so that they had time to think through their actions and hopefully get better from thinking. The idea of a rest cure seemed logical at the time, but doctors now know that the cure has actually been proven to hurt patients more then help them. In Gilman's piece, she speaks of a woman suffering from what doctors today now call depression after having her first child, and the woman has been prescribed the rest cure. The woman in the story was told to, "take phosphates," and was, "absolutely forbidden to work" (Gilman, 209), until she was well again. She was told not to write, but in spite of her husbands orders, she did anyways. The woman was given an improper diagnosis because they could not pin point that the woman was in fact suffering from a depressive disorder. The doctors at the time just believed that the woman needed to get her thoughts straight and the best method of doing this was the rest cure. A more proper medical diagnosis would have been to diagnose the woman with a depression disorder and give her medications, but at the time doctors did not feel that medicine could help the woman and the doctors were very unsure of what the concept of "depression" actually was at the time.

In mental disorders, such as depression, there is always the possibility that the patient's mental condition will get worse as time goes on. Doctors aspire to treat patients with psychological disorders in a timely manner so that there is no chance that a patient could be harmed from not getting treated for their condition in time, but for the woman in Gilman's story, this was not the case. The rest cure did not affect the woman in the story mentally or physically in the beginning. She was able enjoy the gardens around her house, the narrator of the story described them as, " large and shady, full box-bordered paths, and lined with long grape-colored arbors with seats under them" (209). The woman in the story had plenty of time to become one with her thoughts, she often thought that if she was well enough to write, " it would relieve the press of ideas and rest me [herself]" (211). In the end of the novel however, the rest cure drove the woman into a psychological downward spiral because she was not treated for her psychological condition soon enough. At first, all of the free time to think proved beneficial to the woman in the story. The woman started a journal to record her daily thoughts and actions so she could keep herself entertained. Over time, however, the lack of physical stimulation caused the woman in Gilman's story to fix her attention on objects in the room, such as the yellow wallpaper. The woman forced herself into making patterns out of the pattern in the yellow wall paper. Eventually, the woman in Gilman's story began to see a woman in the paper and the woman appeared to be trapped, behind what appeared to be bars. At the end of the Gilman's short story, the wallpaper somewhat began to resemble the main character in Gilman's story. The woman felt the woman in the paper was, " stooping down and creeping about behind the pattern" (214) and she is, " all the time trying to climb through" (Gilman, 218). This resembled the woman in the novel greatly because she felt that she was trapped in the room much like the woman was trapped behind the bars of the wallpaper. This drove the woman mad, and mentally, she somewhat became crazy because her thoughts driving her insane.

Currently, there are many medications that are used to treat psychological disorders, such as the woman's depression in Gilman's short story, The Yellow Wallpaper. In the past, Doctors believed that the rest cure, "  boosted the patient's weight and increased blood supply. It also removed the patient from a potentially toxic social atmosphere at home" (Mitchel). When treating psychological disorders today, Doctors will prescribe medications such as Zoloft or Prozac to treat depression disorders rather than prescribe a rest cure for their patients. When a patient is suffering from a depressive disorder, the serotonin levels in their brain are unbalanced, and in most cases, the serotonin levels are to o low. Serotonin is one of the pleasure neurotransmitters in the nervous system that will activate the happy and sad emotions of humans and other animals that it can be found in.  Depression medications will bring the levels back to normal so that the patient can experience more pleasure. In Gilman's piece, the woman was given insufficient medical attention, and this is what cause her disorder to progress so negatively toward the end of the story. If the woman in the story would have been given better medical care, such as one of the depression medication, her condition would have most likely gotten better and the woman could have resumed the life she had before she developed her depression disorder.

In Charlotte Perkins Gilman's essay, The Yellow Wallpaper, Gilman tells the story of a woman that has just given birth to a child, but in the aftermath of the pregnancy, the woman develops a case of depression. Back in the nineteenth century, most psychological disorders, like depression, were not treated with medication like they are today, but by a method known as the rest cure. This rest cure allowed patients to do nothing in an attempt that their thoughts would be cleansed and the patient would be cured. In Gilman's essay, the woman was prescribed the rest cure for her case of depression. The diagnosis the woman's medical condition was not only improper, but it also caused the woman's mental health to decline at the end of the story, and it caused the woman in the story to receive improper medical care for her condition. The woman was driven mad at the end of the story because she fixed her thoughts on an image she found in the wallpaper. The woman began to believe that she was the woman in the paper, and because she was not properly treated for her medical condition, the woman in the novel actually embraced the persona of the woman in the yellow wall paper, and went insane. 

